Affiliate Marketing Basics Beginners Guide
Affiliate marketing is a fast growing marketing technique to make money online. In this post you will learn how affiliate marketing works along with tips to help you become successful to make money in our Affiliate Marketing Basics Beginners Guide.What is Affiliate Marketing? By definition according to wikipedia:
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity, resulting in the emergence of a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.
In simple terms, it means that you will be rewarded for helping businesses promote their products or services on your website. You can receive a commission for driving the buyer to the seller’s site once they make a purchase. This can include text links, banner ads, email opt-in programs and a few others. Although affiliate marketing is a quick and somewhat inexpensive way to start making money online, it can be difficult. It is a very competitive industry.
Affiliate Marketing Basics Beginners Guide to Start Making Money
Perks of Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate Marketing is one of the fastest growing marketing techniques to earn an income online. There are a lot of perks to affiliate marketing which makes it a very easy and attainable way to make money online. When you are an affiliate marketer you have —No feesZero production costsNo physical store or business locationNo employees to payReach people globally instead of a restricted geographical areaWork from homeMake your own schedule
Getting Started:
To get started with affiliate marketing you will first need to find different affiliate companies to join. There are a LOT of different options to choose from when it comes to being an affiliate. Here are a few to get started: ShareasaleShopHer Media {formerly MySavings Media}Escalate NetworkAmazon AffiliatesCommission JunctionFlexOffersRakuten Affiliate Marketing {formerly LinkShare}Link VehicleMommerceMoms AffiliateOnce you have been approved you can then start choosing which programs fit well with the content on your site. Go through the products and service that they offer and see which campaigns you feel comfortable promoting to your audience. You always want to make sure that it is actually a product or service that you would recommend and use. If you choose affiliate links just for the sake of making money then it will not fit into your content and you readers will know that you are not being genuine. You can also consider the other forms of making money through affiliate companies like shown below. Depending on the affiliate programs they offer there are a variety of ways that you can make a commission.Pay Per Click - With this program you will get paid on the number of visitors that click on your link or banner which directs them off of your site and onto a seller’s website. This means you get paid just for the act of clicking even if they do not make a purchase.Pay Per Sale - You will receive a percentage of the final sale after a purchase is made using your unique tracking link.Pay Per Lead - You receive a commission when a referred visitor fills out a form to provide contact information such as an email address to a third party site.Now that you have decided what affiliate programs are a good fit for your website you are now ready to use your unique tracking link. This link is specific to you and it allows the affiliate company to track any sales coming from your site. Not only are there unique links, but they offer banners, images and other ways that you can promote the product or service. All you need to do is copy the html code and paste it into your blog.So, once someone clicks on your unique link and makes a purchase you will receive a commission. You can then track your stats to see what works well with your audience. Most affiliate companies will track your stats in real time.
Affiliate Marketing Success Tips:
From my own personal experience I have learned what works and what does not work when it comes to affiliate marketing. Here are some of my tips to help you become successful at affiliate marketing.1. Do not promote everythingWhen you are first starting out you may be very overwhelmed and want to promote every product the affiliate company has to offer. Be selective when choosing the products or services you want to promote and offer to your audience. Pick products that works well with your demographics. What need can you fulfill for them?2. Check out your statsYou do not want to be checking your stats all day, but keep an eye on them and see which programs work better and try to focus on those. You stats will show you your click through rates and conversion rates. It is extremely useful to know how many people click on a link and complete the purchase and how many people click on it and leave the site. It will help you to determine if you are presenting it correctly and if it is something your audience actually wants.3. Promote different waysDo not just sign-up for an affiliate program and then copy the banner ad into your sidebar and wait for the money to roll-in. It will NOT happen. You may get some traction but I have found that affiliate marketing works best when you use links within a post. Write about why you like it or show them the benefits before just sticking in a link that has nothing to do with the content of the post.
You can also check out Ideas to Make Money Blogging if you are interested in more ways to monetize your website.